Night. Stillness reigned in the old cemetery as Buffy wandered among the headstones, smiling a little at how comforting the familiar creepiness of the place was. The summer had somehow pulled a vanishing act on her, and before she knew it she'd managed to add some hundred-odd piles of vampire dust to her Big Bucket 'o the Former Undead and was now staring straight into the slavering maws of her course selection deadline. Willow had promised to help her slay that particular demon by the end of the week, though, so she wasn't worried. Much. If anyone could help her find classes designed to be absorbed via osmosis during the REM state, it was Willow. Besides, UC Sunnydale was a party school, and she was pretty sure she could ace that final. Partying was a Slayer's birthright--and anyway, didn't every cotillion need a bit of spicing up from gyms set afire and tuxedo-maddened hellhounds?

She leaned back against the half-crumbled headstone of a Salvadore L. Tibbs, "beloved father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and ment" (the rest had cracked off during a fight with a short but very spiny demon last last week)--maybe he'd been a model mental patient--and looked around, frowning. The summer had kept her hopping, and now all of Sunnydale's non-human populace had decided to take a vacation? And here she'd thought she'd be able to end her pre-college career with a bang (well, a smaller bang than the Mayor, but still something audible). Those stupid evil-doers. They'd probably gotten together and decided to leave her alone so she'd wallow in post-Angel-moving-to-LA depression. Well, she'd show them. She was a freshman now, and she wasn't going to take any of that demon mind-twisting mumbo-jumbo. She leapt off the headstone, face set with determination. If they weren't going to come to her, she'd just have to take the fight to them. And then they'd see--

The air in front of her suddenly flared an incandescent white, and she threw up her arm, eyes streaming. A thunderous boom shook the ground, destroying what was left of the late procreative Mr. Tibbs' headstone. When silence returned to the cemetery once more, Buffy was gone.



Night. The air was sultry with spices, perfume, the pulsing of quickened heartbeats and smiling, come-hither eyes. Like the pair focused on him now out of a lovely sun-bronzed face from across the room. His eyes trailed down an impressive (and in his expert opinion, artificially augmented) set of knockers tucked into a light shimmering green blouse and long slender legs arched gratuitously on top of nine-inch heels. He tossed back his drink and threw a couple of bills on the bar before swaggering toward her. "Looking for some company, pet?" he smirked.

"Only the kind that makes it--" she looked him up and down, her Latin American accent making the words a purr--"worth my while."

"Oh, I guarantee this'll be a night you'll never forget," he promised her, leaning forward to murmur the words into her ear, delighting in her shiver.

She followed him willingly out the door and into the busy streets flowing with chatter, laughter, tourists, and locals trying to sell them everything from home-made burritos to whole alpaca skins. Her eyes shone as he led her into the part of town preferred by well-off tourists and up to the door of a pretty little whitewashed villa set a little apart from the others and made private by a screen of large elm trees. Her heart began to race as he took her hand and led her into the dark foyer, making his fangs itch in his gums. The hunger coiled in his stomach and then deeper, and he pulled her quickly through the dark house, past the spotless granite-countered kitchen with its double row of gleaming copper-bottomed pots and unmoving, slumped shapes arranged in a semi-circle at the table like a caricature of the portrait of a happy little family at dinner.

She faltered a little, eyes darting in vain to make out the shadows of recognizable objects among the more amorphous shadows of night. "You no smell something...bad?" she asked, her voice made sharper by the beginnings of that unacknowledged hysteria which was all that remained to the human species of the instinctive recognition of a dangerous predator by all prey.

"Must be the, uh, janitor. Forgot to take out the garbage again, the little...forgetful brown chap," Spike explained glibly. Fortunately, the human species had had centuries to develop a rational mind to tell them that their instincts were silly and to be ignored, especially when there was another dumb tourist just waiting to be plucked.

He had to admit that they were getting a little ripe, though. Dru had saved the little boy and his sister for last like delicate morsels simmered in their own special stew of terror, grief, and desperation, but even that had been a day and a half ago. The man, a typical banker sort with a fast-retreating hairline and a faster-advancing paunch, was starting to get downright malodorous. He and Dru would have to find other digs soon...after he'd had a chance to extract a little revenge on her for disappearing on him last night.

There was a gasp. "Let go! You hurt me!" the woman at his side protested loudly, and he realized that he was crushing her hand in his. He ignored her, and dragged her forward when she tried to dig in her heels. She hit him with her other hand. "Let go! Asshole!" she screeched.

He let go. There was another scent weaving beneath and around the familiar scent of maturing death--another sound pulsing under the galloping heartbeat beside him. He rushed forward and threw open the heavy door of the master bedroom so hard that the bronze handle left a hole in the drywall.

Drusilla smiled a voluptuous smile at him from the king-sized bed, her perfect white fangs peaking out from panting, deep red lips, her amber eyes glittering. The bed shook as the huge ugly bull-like creature wrapped between her strong thighs thrust forward in rapid uncontrolled jerks, making Drusilla coo and arch up against him, rubbing her full breasts against his furry chest.

Spike saw the scene through the mist of blood filling his eyes. He opened his mouth and drew breath--and a scream overrode the thick grunts and satisfied moans from the room. He spun. The woman with him had flicked on the hallway light and was now screaming with mindless horror as she stared at the tableau in the kitchen--the pale, ghostly children with their staring dead eyes, the mousy, over-coiffed mother with her head tilted at an impossible angle (she'd screamed rather like this), the father with his rumpled business shirt soaked in his own blood.

"Shut. Your. Gob." he growled.

Her screams choked off into sobbing little whimpers, and she stared at him, eyes beginning to glaze over as if the life were already leaching out of them. Then she turned and ran.

He caught her before she'd taken more than three stumbling steps and slammed her head-first into the hallway wall. Then he very deliberately put one hand against her ear, reached the other around her head, and twisted viciously. The snap of her neck sounded like a dry punctuation to Drusilla's cry of ecstasy. He dropped the body in place and picked up a heavy half-rusted machete some enterprising local had probably told the gullible American was a ancient Mayan artifact or some such rot.

The blade was duller than a butter knife, and the first blow got stuck between the first and second vertebrae of the horned demon's spine. He wrenched it free as it bellowed, then struck again before it had time to do anything more than turn toward him menacingly. The second swing cut through its windpipe, and the bellow became a strangled gurgle as a steaming gush of blood hit him in the chest. He licked his lips, tossed the useless piece of scrap metal away, and went at it with fists and fangs, the scent and taste of blood in the air gripping him with a wild, mindless need for violence.

Drusilla continued to undulate greedily, moaning first his name and then a guttural, half-grunted mouthful of syllables that must have been the bull's. Suddenly she froze, her body bowstring-taut, a wail tearing from her lips. A second later the bed heaved and abruptly tossed all three of them to the floor. The bull, his head hanging from his neck by a few scrapes of dark gray leathery skin, fell like a ton of bricks on top of Spike, his curved deadly-looking horns just missing Spike's stomach. As Spike's eyes cleared, he saw what he had mistaken to be a shaggy carpet rise from the bed and stand over him, red eyes glaring malevolently.

"Bollocks," he muttered as the even bigger bull demon drew him up as if he weighed nothing and dangled him five feet in the air.

It examined him, its deep continuous growl rattling in Spike's bones as it yanked him close, its warm, surprisingly sweet-smelling breath making him feel like he'd been suspended in a sauna. It snorted, its lips curling, revealing a row of heavy-duty even white teeth that could probably chew him to mash, bones and all. It drew him closer until both their eyes crossed, and Spike braced himself as its mouth opened.

It rumbled, "I don't like your coat."

Then it headbutted him with the force of a steam roller, and Spike's world disappeared in a flash of brilliant white pain.



Under the thin blue light of a waning moon Willow stood on a rooftop five hundred twenty-four stories high, facing herself. Her double advanced toward her with the Scythe in her hands, resolve on her face but not in her eyes. Willow's gaze slid to the ancient weapon as it wavered. Could the other Willow possibly know what impulse informed the dark, sardonic smile on her lips? Some of it, perhaps. Not all. Not nearly all, for those years of burrowing silence and endless echoes still stretched ahead of her. Or did they? Was it possible for another her to be wiser or colder? Stronger--or was it weaker?

"Why?" Another Her pleaded.

Of course she would want to know. But what could she say? Had it been love? Hate? Curiosity or fear? A last gasp for something which still burned so brightly in Another Her but would eventually leave behind nothing but ashes? Could she ever have believed that the soul could be chipped away, sanded thin, worn and wasted until there was nothing left?

She smiled a cool smile into the other Willow's eyes, then walked forward until they were standing so close that lilac-scented hair brushed her cheek as she murmured, "Hmm, let's see." She laid an open hand across Another Her's neck, her rapid pulse fluttering like butterfly's wings beneath her thumb, leaned forward, and kissed her lingeringly on the mouth.

She stepped back, watching Another Her's confusion-filled eyes open after a long moment with sensual pleasure. Then she shrugged. "It passed the time."

Pain and anger cleared Another Her's eyes, and the Scythe steadied in her hands. "Hope it was worth it, then, because you've just run out."

Had she really thought her quips clever back then? Willow had time to wonder, before the white-hot pain slashed across her chest from sternum to navel, and an involuntary gasp left her lips. White light blinded her as she fell backwards, and she knew nothing more.